Here at greenlight for girls, we’re thrilled to be a part of something big… something exciting… something that will surely make some noise! A strong partnership with greenlight for girls and Cisco has led us to this day when we could not be more proud to announce the first ever g4g Day event in Spain in the charming city of Barcelona this Spring!

On April 25th, the 5th annual g4g Day@Southcoast was hosted by the Kaput Center for Research & Innovation in STEM Education at UMass Dartmouth. A day of science and technology for girls aged 10-15 brought 150 students from SouthCoast schools and each young greenlight girls got to attend two workshops for the day out of a number of cool themes that make us wonder… how do they manage to choose only two?! Workshops included:“Math in How You Move”; “Imagineering Engineering”; “Engineering a Robot to Solve a Rubik’s Cube”...

What can we do to encourage more girls to enter the world of Information and Communication Technology? Girls should be able to experience the IT world first hand, in an interactive work environment – to be able to see, touch, hear and be inspired by the possibilities their future holds – and it all begins at an early age.

We have learned that inspiration has no limits. Once again, our scholarship girls in India have shared with us their passion for learning and for science - so much, it makes us wish we were university students again too!

In January this year, we had an amazing opportunity with our greenlight children in India....

In December we were back in India with Covestro for the last two events of our STEM Festival! First, we hosted an event in Goa on December 4 and 5, welcoming more than 400 girls. Then, on December 14 and 15 we went to Nagpur to meet more than 350 girls. We taught workshops in several languages and showed the girls how STEM is part of their everyday lives.

On December 8, we joined forces with Stanley Black & Decker for our first g4g @work in Damparis, France! 30 kids got the opportunity to come to the SBD premises in Damparis and explore fun, interactive workshops. They unlocked their creativity while making their own sculptures using chocolate, they were amazed when they managed to extract their own DNA, they enjoyed learning about circuitry while building their own drawing robots, and they had lots of fun testing both their own strength… and that of the SBD tools! A massive thanks to the wonderful welcoming teams of SBD and to the 10 volunteers of the day!

On December 12, we were thrilled to host our first g4g @work in Madrid with Nokia! We welcomed 100 curious girls aged 10-15 and had a blast exploring all the fun aspects of STEM. The big hits of the day? Crafting their own explosive bath bombs, learning about plasma physics and fruit batteries, being amazed by Nokia technologies and competing at Pictionary… in Virtual Reality! What an amazing experience! A massive thanks to our guest speakers of the day, Francisco Polo, State Secretary for the digital matters and Alicia Richart, General Director of digitalES, and to all the 40 volunteers for helping this day come to life!

On December 15 we hosted our last Makerspace of the year in our lovely atelier in Brussels. We made the most out of innovation, smart homes, and… delicious ingredients! Each of our 20 students of the day had the chance to make their own edible home, full of sustainability inventions and creative thinking. Browse through our photos on the left!

Finally, we kicked-off 2019 by presenting STEM activities to the British Junior Academy of Brussels on January 10 and 11 in front of 80+ kids for their STEM week. Lava lamps, polymer worms, elephant toothpaste, magic milk, DNA experiments, bath bombs… all of which were quite popular with these curious minds and eyes!

Women & STEM in India

In the upcoming two decades, India may have one of the youngest and largest working-age population in the world. But despite many positive shifts, education for some girls in India remains a challenge and is still below the world average. And when we look to the take-up of STEM careers when education isn’t a barrier, the Economic Forum Report show that in India only 14.3% of researchers in science are women.

So, what can we do?

With the help of great partners and an enthusiastic g4g community in India, we are working together to see how greenlight for girls can do more to make a difference for girls to have access to higher education and be encouraged to continue their pursuit towards STEM opportunities.

An incredible STEM Festival with Covestro

As we say with everything we do, it always starts with one person, one group or even one company that says – let’s start!

Our global partner, Covestro, is that company. Over the past few years, we’ve been working together to do more and more in India. Due to some amazing individuals (Ajay Durrani, Managing Director at Covestro India, Chintan Joshi, Divya Gaitonde, Gilroy Correia, Allan R, Rachel Owen, and the whole Covestro-g4g team) and others, they have been the ones to say each year, “What if we did more? What if we reached more girls?”

For 2018, they proposed to collaborate on a STEM festival in India with the Covestro team, the ChandraMohan Foundation, the Nehru Science Centre (Ministry of Culture, Gvnmt of India) and g4g – and we loved the idea! After the team’s incredible dedicated work, we are all proud to have reached more than 3000 girls in 6 cities, delivered full days of STEM workshops in 5 languages (Hindi, Marathi, Malayalam, Gujarati and English), over 3 months! These special girls, coming from such a diverse background, had the wonderful chance to be inspired by incredible guest speakers and role models and to learn first-hand about science from the Covestro team.

What, where, when?

Between October 8-13 we went to Mumbai and met with more than 1200girls curious and eager to discover all the fun in science.

Between November 7-9 it was in Calicut that we inspired more than 370 girls to pursue STEM careers.

Our third event was in Noida, between November 21-24 and we invited more than 430girls to join us for a full free day of science discoveries!

In Dharampur, between November 28 and 29, we met with 335 girls curious to learn all the exciting secrets of STEM.

Then, we hosted an event in Goa on December 4 and 5, welcoming more than 400 girls.

Finally, on December 14 and 15 we went to Nagpur to meet more than 400 girls.

All the events started with a motivational session from popular women scientists who shared their experiences of being in this field. This was followed by hands-on fun experiments with 30 girls in one workshop and 3 workshops throughout the day.

The experiments were about making a simple circuit, creating a polymer putty and extracting Human DNA. In the MakeItGlowworkshop, students were taught to make a simple circuit in using copper tape, lithium battery and a LED. The Polymer Puttyworkshop involved mixing two compounds or polymers that react with each other to form a completely new polymer. In the Human DNA workshop, the students studied the structure and composition of the human DNA and got an opportunity to extract their own DNA.

Our events with Covestro

MUMBAI, Oct. 8-13, 2018

Mumbai was our first step for this festival. And what a step… With more than 1200 girls and 10 truly inspiring guest speakers, it was an exciting couple of days for the girls, who seemed genuinely curious and inquisitive about what they were being taught in the workshops.

The highlights of the Mumbai events…

Dr. Pallavi Deshmukh sharing about her journey in the field of science, explaining how she never gave up on her determination. Quoting her, “We have to think, be curious and above all courageous.”

Ms. Harpreet, who shared her journey of becoming the first woman pilot with Air India, and who showed the girls how science involves a dash of creativity and is incomplete without it!

Dr. Swati Patankar, who proved herself as a true mentor to the young minds when she said, “Don’t give up, be comfortable with your failures.”

Dr. Surekha Zingde who illustrated her speech with amazing stories of prominent Indian women achievers in the field of STEM, starting from Dr. Anandibai Joshee (the first woman doctor to practise western medicine in the 1800s) to present day achievers.

On Oct. 11, during the United Nations International Day of the Girl Child, which theme for this year was “With Her: A Skilled GirlForce”, when all our female volunteers had an amazing mentoring session with the girls.

The fact that the sessions were displayed in both Hindi and Marathi, so everyone could feel involved and concerned.

When Dr. Alpa Bharati encouraged the girls follow their passion, not feel guilty about doing soand “Push your limits, take risks and never be afraid to fail.”

When Mrs. Manjula Yadav, representing the Nehru Science Centre, Mumbai, encouraged the girls to think out-of-the-box and pursue science from an innovative perspective

When everyone, girls and volunteers, wrote down their aspirations on a piece of paper and discussed it at the end of the day

When our talented girls improvised a dance performance at the end of the last day, taught a few dance steps to the audience and we had the entire auditorium grooving!

CALICUT, Nov. 7-9, 2018

Calicut, also known as Kozhikode, is a coastal city in the southern Indian state of Kerala. This was our second stop for our #STEM4GirlsFestival2018, where we engaged 378 young girl students of different economic backgrounds from 13 schools over two days. Interacting with students from Kerala, India’s first state to achieve 100% literacy was quite a humbling experience.

The highlights of the Calicut event…

The energy and enthusiasm of all these girls, that our first guest speaker of the day couldn’t help but notice and applaud!

When Mr. Manash Bagchi from the Regional Science Centre invited the girls, teachers and volunteers to the opening of the Genomics Hall for the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics, which was since inaugurated by the Nobel laureate Harold Varmus on 11th November 2018.

When Dr. T.R Resmi, Scientist & Head in charge, Isotope Hydrology Division(CWRDM) had these inspirational words : “Think where you want to reach, the path will then form automatically” .

When our workshops were taught both in English and Malayalam

NOIDA, Nov. 21-24, 2018

Noida is the abbreviation for the ‘New Okhla Industrial Development Authority’, which is a systematically planned satellite city of Delhi. For our event, more than 400 girls, coming mostly from slum areas, braved the plummeting morning temperatures to join us at the Covestro factory.

The highlight of the Noida event…

When Sunita Durrani shared her personal story with the girls. Coming from a small town in Jammu & Kashmir she recently made it to joining the World Health Organisation as a health care professional, working in marginalized communities to help eradicate Polio. The room, full of girls coming from less privileged areas, resonated with shared emotion that “girls can do anything once they've made up their mind”.

When our volunteers asked the girls “Who do you want to be?’, and the girls answered, both fearful and hopeful : Doctors, Engineers, Police women…

DHARAMPUR, Nov. 28-29, 2018

For this event, girls were coming from a radius of 50 km where the event was held, particularly from several tribal hamlets. In Dharampur, which is a more rural area than the last three areas we had our events in, girls frequently help their families in the farms in addition to going to school (that are usually very far away from their homes). Education is considered important, but helping their family and growing food is vital.

The highlight of the Dharampur event…

When Dr. Kusumben Rawal, the Gynecologist who started the first maternity hospital in Dharampur, spoke about women empowerment, a topic very close to her heart.

When Dhruti Mehta, explained to the girls that “knowledge is the real weapon”

When Aparna Kadikar, Architect and Social Worker, talked about her journey of being the only girl in her class at the architecture college to setting up Kedi, an alternative education school nearby.

When Swati Bedekar talked about menstruation and explained the physiology behind it and thus, dispelling the myths around it.

GOA, Dec. 4-5, 2018

Our two days in Goa, known for its beautiful beaches with swaying palm fronds, intriguing vernacular architecture and coastal cuisine, were memorable where we reached out to 405 girls from 20 schools.

The highlight of the Goa event…

When Dr. Neha Phadke, shared her journey from being the daughter of a farmer to a scientist

When Dr. Siby Kurien, Principal Scientist, CSIR - National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) opened doors to the girls by presenting to them a subject they didn’t know anything about : Oceanography.

When KR Anupama concluded the day with a very heart touching speech, telling the girls they need to be themselves, be assertive, listen and act on constructive criticism… while talking about Hermione Granger (which struck a chord with all the students!). As a professor in the Department of Electrical & Electronics Engineering, BITS Pilani KK Birla Goa Campus, she often encounters a gender skew in favour of boys in any class.

NAGPUR, Dec. 14-15, 2018

For the last event of our Science Festival with Covestro, the STEM4GirlsFestival2018, we stopped in Nagpur, in the geographical center of India. The delight and the smile on the 357 faces after they succeeded in the experiment, reminded us why we planned this festival.The highlight of the Nagpur event…

When Dr. Jyotsna Meshram introduced students to the basics of Green Chemistry and encouraged the girls to accept challenges as stepping stones to the future.

When Mrs. Kanchan Gadkari, social worker, paid tribute to all the great women who made India’s history - warriors, academics, politics.

I recently joined g4g as a student ambassador, and I’m very excited to work with greenlight in the future! I hope to help lead US-based events and serve as an example for young girls interested in science.

I love being able to explore the world around me, and I find it fascinating how every scientific question can be approached as a puzzle. From coding to chemistry, I love testing different theories and eventually arriving at a conclusion through trial and error. I think that an understanding of science, technology, and engineering is so important in the modern age, and I would love to pursue a STEM-based career in the future.

At greenlight for girls, I am an Ambassador. Ambassadors help promote STEM awareness and lead events in their communities! I’m responsible for supporting g4g projects, along with introducing students to STEM-based fields of study and offering opportunities to explore science.

I decided to join g4g after reading a news article about a greenlight for girls event at the NASA Space Center in Houston, and the event looked like so much fun that I immediately wanted to get involved with g4g! I lead a STEM Club for Girls at my school, and I was looking for additional ways to encourage younger students to pursue a potential career in science and technology. I love g4g’s mission and I’m so excited to be a part of such an amazing organization.

My most fun memory with STEM is probably the first activity that I did with my STEM Club for school. Mixing basic materials and using salt to lower the freezing point of ice, we made ice cream in a bag! This experiment was super easy and so much fun, especially because we got to eat our results afterwards! ;)

This month, I wanted to share with you a fascinating article about an engineer responsible for designing and programming the robotic arm on NASA’s most recent spacecraft. Ollenu’s arm is tasked with placing crucial scientific instruments on Mars’ surface, and through his work, many scientists will soon be able to examine data from millions of kilometers away. Beyond his work, Ollennu runs hands-on robotics workshops and competitions in his home country, Ghana, and he encourages the next generation of scientists to pursue their passions.

Our greenlight girls are absolutely incredible – strong, intelligent, and curious young girls, and we never fail to be impressed by their determination and capability to see a future full of possibilities. Recently, we've had such fun seeing silly scientists, innovative engineers, resourceful technicians, and more emerge as the girls get messy with hands-on and interactive workshops and activities. And we consider ourselves really lucky, because in only one month it’s 1500 girls that we met. Yes, 1500 in 1 month; it’s like meeting 50 energetic and enthusiastic kids per DAY! Pfew! This month, we went from Brussels to NYC, to Mexico, to India (three times!), to New Jersey, to China, to Russia and back to Belgium again… Ready to read all about it?

———

On November 3, our three amazing volunteers of the day (hello, Jelena, Thais and Alexaundra) gathered in Towson, MD, USA for a new g4g in the community w/ SBD! Once again, we joined forces with Stanley Black & Decker for the 2nd annual International Girls Day at their HQ in Maryland. 60 girls came and explored all the fun in STEM, they built bristlebots able to draw, extracted their DNA to put it in a necklace, or event, discovered the secrets behind slime!

On November 7, you would have found Alex and Loredana in Mexico for our first g4g Day @Mexico City w/ Covestro! 65 girls and 20 volunteers joined to the facilities of Covestro for a unique opportunity to see an insider's look into a day in the life of a polymer chemist as they tested out polymer worms, coding, DNA extraction, and engineer paper planes with their sustainable wish for the future on it. Girls were amazed to discover all the different things that we could do with chemistry and they also shared with us that the focus on sustainability inspired them to build a brighter and greener world. Wow!

On November 9, it’s in the US again that Alex and our 20 volunteers of the day brought STEMtastic workshops for the second g4g Day @Jackson Heights, NYC! During the day, more than 80 kids got to experience five of our fun and interactive workshops; from learning math and statistics with chocolate to discovering biology with DNA extractions, to chemistry with polymer worms, they all proved so inspired and determined! Don’t believe us? At the snap circuits, a group refused to move on to a different project until they got it… they spent nearly the entire workshop figuring out how a specific circuit worked. And guess what? They got it!

That’s in New Jersey that Alex finished her American tour this Fall, with the first g4g Day @Nokia Bell Labs in New Providence (where the telephone was invented by A. G. Bell!) on November 13. A massive thanks to the 30 volunteers from Nokia who helped us during the day and who crafted amazing workshops showcasing Nokia technology and all the fun in STEM. Our lucky 100 greenlight girls were the very first ones to test out the latest innovation from Nokia – the Virtual Factory! They got to be immersed in a virtual world where they tested robotic arms controlling robotics. They also visited the unique “Anechoic Chamber”, a room designed to completely absorb reflections of either sound or electromagnetic waves! As our event took place during Global Entrepreneurship Week, we even brought in a design-thinking activity where girls had to create businesses, inventions, and more to better their home, community, or school.

Between November 17 and 18, you would have seen our inspiring g4g Founder & engineer, Melissa Rancourt, encourage nearly 200 girls in Shanghai and Hangzhou, China at the innovative facilities of Nokia, reminding them that science & technology is linked to absolutely everything around them and, especially, to any future career path they may choose. The girls loved exploring mathematics with chocolate, the chemical reaction of explosive bath bombs, and more as they became Nokia Certified Future Innovators in Technology!

On November 24, our 9th annual g4g Day @Brussels took place at the International School of Brussels in our headquarter city. We welcomed 300 girls & over 75 volunteers from Belgium and the Netherlands to join us for a day of polymer cupcakes, robotics, lasers, the physics of Rubens' Flame Tube, invention with design thinking, fruit batteries, and more! Partners like Solvay, Nokia, Procter & Gamble, Baxter, Covestro, Stanley Black & Decker, and Muntpunt Library joined us – plus, a very special guest speaker.... Zora, the robot! She even managed to show off her dancing skills!

On November 28, we partnered up with Stanley Black & Decker for the launch of our g4g Day @Khimki, Moscow! 60 passionate girls came to one of the local schools in Moscow region to experiment STEM in all its forms. From chemistry with bath bomb to electrical engineering with drawing robots, to building frames and decorating them with laser with SBD tools, the girls, helped by 15 wonderful volunteers spent a brilliant afternoon, surrounded by hands-on science and fun learning!

At the same time, and for the past few months already, we’ve been working in India to bring hands-on science and technology to over 2,700 girls thanks to an incredible global partner, Covestro, and along with the Nehru Science Centre & Chandra Mohan Foundation. Girls had the chance to converse & hear from keynote speakers in both English and the local languages, and had the opportunity to try out polymer chemistry, bio-engineering with DNA, or electronics, where they created their own Vibrobots, design their own sustainable invention, and more. In November, we had events in Calicut between November 7-9, in Noida region between November 21-23, and finally, at the end of the month, in Dharmapur between Nov. 29 and 30… a total of more than 1170 girls reached and inspired in India this month: wow, another new record! Come back early January to read our blog post dedicated to this Indian journey and hear about all our upcoming projects in India!

My name is Marianne, I am French, 22 years old, and I have been a g4g ambassador for 4 years now! It all started after I participated in the recording of a g4g on the Air radio show with Radio X (which you can listen to here, by the way!). Fast forward to four years later, and I am joining g4g Team for the month of November and December, and getting even more involved with all the behind-the-scene stuff. The highlight was definitely organizing our g4g Brussels Day, with a turnout of more than 300 girls! Although it was a lot of work, I was very proud to see it come to life and to know that I had helped make it happen.

The recording of g4g on the Air with RadioX, my first g4g event ever!

I am a strong believer in equal chances for everyone, so I was naturally drawn to g4g’s cause. Although I did not graduate in a STEM field, I am naturally curious and like reading and learning about everything, including STEM-related topics such as sustainability, chemistry, coding…actually, one of my favorite thing about volunteering at a g4g event is that I always get to learn new things about STEM during the day!

Unfortunately, my time as part of the g4g Team is slowly coming to an end, as I am preparing myself to move to the Netherlands. There, I will continue the rest of my gap year with an internship. I will miss the wonderful Team that I had the privilege of working with for these past two months, but I will of course remain a g4g ambassador. I am looking forward to volunteer at more g4g events in the future!

Houses full of candies, leaves on the ground, shorter days… there is no doubt that autumn is here – but while days are short, we are making the most of them. So, what did this month bring to the g4g team?

On October 6, the whole g4g team gathered in Barcelona: Melissa, Alex, Lucy, Loredana and Marie joined the fantastic Cisco Partners in Spain (thank you David & Raquel!) to host the second g4g Day @Barcelona in three years. 200 girls spent the whole day immersed in STEMtastic workshops and enjoyed the presence of so many role models from our 16 partners: T-systems, Indra, BBVA, Procter & Gamble, Simon, Nexica, La Salle, Comstor, Cisco, IQS, Blanquerna, Submon, Robotix, CRG, Talent Up, HP/ HP Aruba. In addition to some Wify Magic and slime making, girls tested out the science behind their 5 senses, went to explore Mars, discovered the marine environment, fought the cyberspace and yes of course, they also came up with our signature DNA necklaces. The days wouldn’t have been the same without the presence of all our fantastic guest speakers: Dra Guiomar Corral from La Salle Universitat, Joana Barbany and Neus Lorenzo from Generalitat de Catalunya, Xavier Massa, from Cisco Barcelona, Melissa Rancourt, our very own g4g founder and special messages from our great sponsors, Rosa María Rodríguez Curto from T-systems and Elisenda Escofet from Indra. Thank you so much to all of them!

On October 9, Alex packed robotics kits and snap circuits and headed over to the European Parliament for an afternoon on tech discovery with Public Libraries 2020 for the 2018 Generation Code! The girls had the opportunity to delve into cutting-edge technology, meet with local officials, have an insider's look around the Parliament building and engage with the different STEM exhibitions (3D printing, coding, programming, etc.). As a bonus, they also had a chat with a 3D unicorn and the robot Zora from Muntpunt library and built robots with Julie Ward Member of the European Parliament! A huge thank you to Public Libraries 2020 for helping us hosting such a fun day!

Between October 8-13, g4g joined effort with Covestro to organize a five-day event in Mumbai for the #STEM4GirlsFestival2018! Amazing guest speakers took turn to inspire the 1200 girls through this 5 days event: Dr. Juergen Morhard - Consul General of the Federal Republic of Germany, Brinda Miller, artist and mentor, Harpreet A de Singh, President of the IWPA (Indian Women Pilots Association), Dr. Pallavi Deshmukh, Scientist at Covestro India, Brinda Miller, Educator, Director of Studio Millenium and honorary Executive Committee Member of the Kala Ghoda Association, Dr. Swati Patankar, professor at IIT Bombay in the Biosciences and Bioengineering department. And all of this is just the beginning! Look out for news as we continue our g4g STEMFestival travels to 4 more cities reaching even more amazing young women!

On Alex’s birthday (yes you read that right!), October 18, the Brussels team rode to London to meet the wonderful Sarah from AIG and host our second g4g/AIG Design Hackathon at the Southbank Center. This year, 85 inventors from all backgrounds and aged 11-15 had one challenge: Design inventions that better their daily life at home, at school or in their community for a specific person of their choosing. Between a robot that could take plastic trash away, door screens preventing burglary, scanning fridges, levitating beds, floating wheelchairs, smart suits for firefighters and a system preventing water wasting, these girls fought on every level to make the world a better place. We were all so astonished by their ingenuity, imagination and creativity that the judges had a really hard time attributing the grand prize! A big thank you to Geoff Godwin, AIG Chief Operating Officer for agreeing to be our guest speaker and judge of the day, as well as to Domino Pateman from the Southbank Centre, for judging all these exciting projects. Buckle up everyone, these kids are ready to take the world by storm!

Two days after this exciting design thinking challenge, Marie joined Loredana in Spain for our first event with Amazon, helped by the amazing teams over there led by Ariadna and Gloria! On October 20, 40 girls came to the amazon facilities in Madrid for an exciting g4g @work event! In addition to the traditional lab coat customization and the exciting workshops the team had come up with (coding, robotics and DNA necklaces!), they all got the chance to explore the huge amazon warehouse and discover how the packages were prepped for and shipped. Yes, the label maker was a big hit. Yes, learning that the labels are glued thanks to potatoes even more! A massive thanks to Alexandra Sierra, Amazon Prime Now Site leader, for leading such a fun and interactive opening ceremony!

Since we couldn’t simply stop after such a hit, Marie and Lore met again in Barcelona, one week after, for another g4g @work with Amazon, this time in Barcelona! Indeed, on October 27 another group of 40 girls got the chance to visit the biggest amazon warehouse in Spain! In addition to some signature g4g workshops, the girls also raced in an epic marshmallow/spaghettis challenge. An impressive tower of almost 40 cm took the trophy home!

The same day, Lucy and Nikki were hosting our October makerspace in Brussels. Thanks to Stanley Black & Decker’s help, 30 kids got the opportunity to visit our atelier and design the homes of tomorrow. Using their trusty glue guns and some coding skills they came up with pretty innovative solutions to today’s problems. Wanna see?

Finally, on October 31 Andrea took Halloween as a great opportunity to, once again, make the science of everyday life come alive in a classroom with a new and improved Trick or Treat Science! Motivated teachers + excited kids + the international day of candies + fun hands-on STEM workshops = a new g4g in the classroom in Pine Bush, NY full of inquiry, discovery, teamwork, learning, and FUN! It just might be possible that the teachers enjoyed the day as much as, or maybe even more than, the students… and of course, the chance to enjoy some candy while learning is always a bonus!